


Countdown to Glory

by MidnightsNightmares



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: F/M, Gun play, OKAY SO FUN FACT, Violence, and i found the 50000 word fic i wrote with her in the game recently, but LMAO might as well write an ending for it, i shipped her with joshua, it was shit, time has passed and viola has her own complete original story now, viola was my first oc ever and i made her for twewy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightsNightmares/pseuds/MidnightsNightmares
Summary: Joshua is a liar, and she fucking hates him for it.(yeah like im rewriting particular scenes of this now that had great potential so like enjoy idk hop on this train to Cringe City w me i guess)





	1. Chapter 1

Viola had never held a pistol before today, which, sadly enough, wasn’t an event that took place while she was alive. Maybe if she had been alive, there would be a rush of energy and excitement about feeling dangerous, holding such a dishonorable weapon in her hand, but there were a lot more standards here and now - like being dead - that made this a very scary experience. There was something dirty about just gripping it in her hand that made her feel like she could turn this on just about anyone she could think of right now and pull the trigger.

  
But that’s against the rules.

  
“Let’s play a Game then, shall we? It’s quite easy. I’ll count back from ten, and on zero, we both shoot. Whoever’s left standing wins. Isn’t that simple?”

  
That brought forth the overwhelming desire to shoot him now. It would break his rules, but she never agreed to the game, so was she even truly apart of it? And that feeling sat there, making her index finger twitch on the trigger as it pointed toward the ground.

  
But it would mean killing a friend. Joshua was a friend of hers. They never got along once during the game, but there was that distant day when they’d both been raising their voices at each other one morning, slammed off in a game of Tin Pin and, with a shout of victory, Viola had won. Twisting Joshua’s arm to get him to tell the truth hadn’t been easy, but both of them had their own manipulative standards set: Viola would give up on making them wait for the mission for an extra hour if Joshua told her what he was doing, but Joshua demanded she had at least kissed him first.

  
And she remembered -

  
_\- the way he felt, to his thin frame to his soft lips, and how he giggled afterward at the undeniable red on her face. She’d done it to spite him, to prove she’d do anything for the information, but she knew he’d only made her do it for his own selfish amusement. He would have told her either way if she kept being stubborn (and refused to let either of them do what he wanted to) but there was nothing that would have stopped her right then to make sure she knew every ounce of information that he had to shake out of him._

  
_And now -_

  
They stood, opposing one another, guns in their hands and pointed at the other’s body.

  
It was unreal, the fact she knew she’d fought for his sake the whole week. In the distant echoing of her mind she recalled the many times she’d thought of him, and used him for courage to finish a tough fight, even going as far as to use him for motivation to keep going every day. When it was just her and Beat, it was always him that came to mind. It was always Joshua that managed to make her keep going. It was Joshua that brought her here.

  
It was Joshua that lied to her. It was Joshua that had used her like a piece in a puzzle, as his precious little Proxy in a game that she never knew she was playing, and now that he had won, he was going to rightfully Erase what was his:

  
Her and Shibuya.

  
“…I hate you.” She spat out, unable to hold back anymore. He’d _used_ her. He’d _treated_ her like an _idiot_. He _mocked_ her. He _killed_ her. _God_ , that was the only reason she was here in the first place! She happened to get caught up in the shoot out that him and Minamimoto were having and though she cowered in fear and even scrambled to get away, she could now realistically feel the phantom pain of his shoe digging into her back, the barrel of the gun pushed against her head, and his sinister breath on her ear as he whispered to her, “Good night.”

  
“You loved me at one point. You can’t deny that.” Joshua said back. The Game hadn’t started yet. It seemed he had been expecting her backlash.

  
“I gave myself away for you. I became a better person because of you. And you’re putting a fucking gun in my hand for a Game. You want me to kill you." 

   
"What better way to get your revenge?”

  
“You’re selfish. You’re so fucking selfish. How can you ask me to do this? How can you do everything you’ve done to me and then act like I can do this?”

  
Joshua smirked. Oh, how she loathed it. He really was fucking evil, to take someone like her who loved no one before, build a bond with her, and then force her to point a gun at him.

  
She was distantly wishing she had taken Megumi’s side now. If she had taken the side that Joshua was fighting against. She would have loved to see how he would feel if his little game piece turned against him.

  
“You’re saying you don’t want to shoot me? I’ll have an easy win in this game.”   
She felt so embarrassed from how she couldn’t control her emotions, for how recklessly they spilled over her cheeks, hot and fast.

  
“I don’t want to shoot you. You’re right. I don’t want to shoot you, and that’s because I care about you. Don’t you care about me?”

  
“Friends shouldn’t bend the rules in a Game for each other, right? We can’t acknowledge what we are right now. Besides," 

  
His index finger almost lovingly caressed the trigger of his gun.

  
"The Game is about to start. Are you ready, Viola?”

  
This cruel, cruel boy. He knew who he was and what he wanted. He’d been stuck in his ways for far too long now and wouldn’t be tempted by something as simple as the ramblings of a girl he’d used like a pawn to make him think differently. Viola would never be able to change his mind.

  
“Get ready.” He said.

  
She couldn’t do this. Forcing herself to point the gun at him would only be mere suicide for herself. If he died, she would become Composer, and the next thing she would do after that is turn the gun on herself. Shibuya would be in ruins afterward, but she wouldn’t make it any better even if she did manage to shoot him down.

  
She couldn’t save Shibuya in the state it was in, only because it was too quiet, too little clutter, and everyone had complied with the ways Megumi had wanted it to be (oh god, she’d been the reason for that too, with all those red pins).   
She found herself staring at the ground, fully acknowledging she’d lowered her own gun at the wrong time.

  
She’d been fighting all this time for things she never knew about, and it was for things that weren’t going to save her or her friends.

  
She’d killed them all. It was all her fault. If she’d just listened to her own instincts that day she’d begun to suspect something was seriously sketchy about Joshua, then she could have had the ability to stop all of this. She could have done something.

  
“10…”

  
What would she have done? Maybe going to the Reapers would be a bad idea, but the day Kariya and Uzuki had set up that long trial for the both of them would have been the perfect day to do it. She would have probably had to get down on her knees to plead, but she would have, if it meant saving Shibuya and furthermore the two of them. They were evil people, had killed Rhyme, but damn it all, they could have done something. Even if they didn’t believe her right away, they could and observed and saw the way Shibuya was going down hill, would have eventually caved in to help her save it.

  
“9…”

  
Would they have been a good team? Viola and Uzuki always seemed to butt heads whenever they were together, but would they have gotten over their differences eventually to help each other out? Maybe she wouldn’t have even helped Viola at all, seeing as she valued her job as a Reaper far too much to give in to the wolf cries of some Player that had been around for far too long.

  
“8…”

  
No, Viola would have made sure they did. They were the only Reapers that directly interacted with Players beside 777 and the rest of his gang.   
Oh, that wouldn’t have been a bad idea either. 777, BJ and Tenho would have been perfect to go to as well. They weren’t the brightest of the Reapers, but Viola and them got along so well. The first week, how she’d saved 777’s show, and then how she helped them find their treasured microphone the second week. 

  
She remembered that entire investigation too. Joshua had taken it so seriously. He was as desperate to get to Udagawa as she was, but for much different reasons. He wanted to see what the power spike was, and she wanted to know why she kept seeing her body on the ground by there in Joshua’s thoughts. It was kind of cruel, the way he had taunted her like that, setting her up to investigate his mind, to make her see bits and pieces of her own death before rewriting the entire memory, framing the fatal gunshot that killed her on Sho.

  
That sick bastard. Had he enjoyed toying with her the past month?

  
It was enough to force her into driving the anger into her hand, raising the gun to point at him fiercly enough that it visibly shocked Joshua into widening his eyes. His finger twitched on the trigger, but he forced himself to stop.

  
He had been prepared for her to break the rules.

  
“7…”

  
And why shouldn’t she? She should pull this fucking cold trigger and send a goddamn unholy bullet into that halo of pale hair, send it right through his fucking skull, and watch as he fell to the ground. He fucking deserved it. Every single fucking thing to happen to her this past month - from her fucking death, to her own suffering - had been because of him. He wasn’t a fucking saint that these Reapers held him up as, and Megumi had every right to challenge him the way he did. He was homicidal, he was devious, he fucking killed her, and now he’s going to kill the rest of this city and take it down with him - 

  
_\- and he’d been the one to sit her down by the statue of Hachiko with a milkshake and a hot meal after she’d claimed she felt lightheaded. He watched as she ate and she thanked him quietly with an air of shyness that she never knew she had. She’d been flustered, though glad that after all this time of their arguing and their persistant bickering, he’d cared about her. He talked to her about the story of Hachiko - the dog - and how intriguing a story of loyalty could be. He’d reached over and grasped her hand in his frail, cold hand and said that loyalty was a lot like the two of them, who fought hard every day to return back to something they wanted._

  
Her lower lip quivered. 

  
Her grip on the gun went loose, just like her sense of reality -

  
_\- and he waved his hand in front of her face to get her attention again. Joshua pointed to one of the many clothing shops in Shibuya and though she felt disgusted by the thought of being dragged off on another shopping trip with him, he’d grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her inside anyway. There was an unexplainable amount of cash in his pockets that she never understood where he got it from, and from there it was endless rounds of picking clothes off of racks, showing it to her before she rolled her eyes and waved him away, insiting he could dress himself without her help. They couldn’t carry much more, anyway, but Joshua had picked up some light frilly blouse and held it up to her chest, making her heart skip a beat in the process._

_  
“This would look great on you. You should try it on.”_

_  
“No thank you.”_

_  
“Why not? You don’t expand your horizons often enough, Viola. You should at least give it a go. If you don’t like it, I promise you can throw the hanger in my face.”_

_  
It’s not an offer she could skip up. She’d taken any open invitation to almost choke him, or in this case, at least give him a good mark across the cheek. She’d unwillingly taken the clothing item and tried it on, but Viola would be bested if she said she didn’t stop for a moment to admire the way it looked on her, and she hated how this kid seemed to know just about anything if you asked him about it._

__  
“Viola? Let me see.”  
  


_“No.”_   
  


_“Viola, come on! I think you’ll look great.”_

_  
She’d taken it off anyway and had ignored his constant persistence, but when she came out, it was clear by the way her eyes chose to look at the ground rather than his face that she’d been convinced._

_  
“You’re getting it?” Joshua asked._

_  
“…Yeah.”_

_  
He’d taken it from her hands at that moment._

_  
“Let me then, since I picked it out.”_

_  
It was his snarky generosity that pissed her off so many times this week, but it was the genuine look in his eyes that made her fall silent. She wasn’t going to argue with it, so she let him, and he’d handed her the bag with the purchase in it afterward. His hand on hers when he passed it off to her had lingered for a moment too long._

_  
She, for some reason, felt like she wanted to punch him._

_  
_“6…”

  
She wasn’t going to pick the gun up, and she knew she wasn’t going to dodge that bullet that was indefinitely coming her way. Everything they had been through together, every memory they had made on top of the other people she had managed to connect with, settled in her chest right then and there. It was inspiration that flowed through her veins, something that almost made her run over to Joshua to throw her arms around his shoulders and sob into a crook of his neck and beg him to not do it, to let them be happier together, but Joshua had made clear what the Game was.

  
And Joshua liked his games.

  
“5…”

  
And she wouldn’t blame him in the end. The way she behaved before was a perfect example of Shibuya: closed off, and unwilling to change.

  
But she had changed. Her immense feeling to drop to the ground and plead with him to stop the Game was overwhelming, yet she didn’t want to die an awful death.

  
This was her end. Her true end. 

  
Joshua shot her in Udagawa, used her as a pawn, and now they were here since Megumi lost the Game, playing a little Game of their own.

  
It was pitiful.

  
“4…”

  
Maybe this was always how she was meant to go. She fought long and hard for one thing but in the end her own desires never mattered to the person in charge of it all. She wondered, even for a moment, if she’d gotten through to him in her own sincerity when it came to her own claims they were friends, but something told her that Joshua didn’t have it in him anymore to consider people like her who belonged to the living in the RG. 

  
“3…”

  
Viola said a quiet apology to the new people she had met, even going as far as to think of Hanekoma and Megumi.

  
“2…”

  
She had the chance and it was ruined.

  
“1…”

  
The gunshot came faster than she was expecting, the hit landing her directly in the chest. It was numb for a moment, and she felt her knees go weak as her hand came up to touch the blood already bubbling up where the wound was. She wasn’t sure if the bullet had gone directly through her, but it didn’t matter, only because she fell to the ground seconds later.

  
She tasted metal. She spit out a mouthful of blood mixed in with her spit.  
Joshua didn’t move, as if fascinated by the way she reacted to the wound, but her eyes closed, and her breaths were forced to stop.

  
_Joshua… my best friend._

  
And she went still.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re alive, ain’t ya, ya petite prince? Look soft, but you’re a real bad rule breaker.”

  
There never is any hesitation from Kariya, the one and only Reaper who didn’t seem to care whether or not he had work to do right in front of his face. Viola had only been playing this game for two weeks, had only just met him in the UG, but his laid back attitude didn’t cut any slack when it came to breaking harsh news. And it was news that tore into Viola’s chest the second he said it, and the only thing that she was able to think of in that moment was that she couldn’t be hearing him right. She tried piecing his words together different in her mind many times over but there was no doubt about it.

  
Kariya just managed to break it to her that Joshua - her partner that she’d just began to value and appreciate - was a fucking _traitor_.

  
And she would like to say she didn’t believe it, but the look on Joshua’s face - that smug, cocky ass look she’d love to tear off - told her enough she didn’t need to waste a breath on a simple hope that it wasn’t the truth.

  
He lied to her, plain and simple. No beating around the bush. And for a moment, she counted her blessings on the fact she made this a no-strings attached partnership. Their friendship was set up to last as long as this Game was going to, and now that the betrayal was laid out hot and fresh for her to take in, she no longer felt the guilt that constantly loomed over her thoughts from the few times she’d snapped at him this week.

  
Yet somehow it still hurt. If she’d made it where she could easily break everything off with him the second she was back in the RG, why did this hurt so much? 

  
…Because she’d trusted him? 

  
“J…Joshua…?”

  
It was pathetic to hear how weak her voice was compared to the typical monotone disinterest it held. Viola didn’t enjoy sounding like that, so weak and helpless at everything around her. If this is what connections with people were going to do to her, then she would rather not have anyone to be with at all. Before the Game, she knew who she was and how she wanted to live life, but letting people in has… demolished that. She’s different now.

  
And she doesn’t know whether or not she likes it, only because she’s tearing up at the betrayal of some kid she hardly knew.

  
Who also conveniently was suspect for her murder.  
  


Joshua didn’t reply to her, instead saying something to Kariya she couldn’t hear. His voice was distant.

  
“Josh…ua?”

  
No response. 

  
Kariya was saying something back, but she still couldn’t hear him. She felt herself take a step back, then two, and when it happened thrice, Joshua turned his head at the sound of her shoe hitting the pavement. 

  
Kariya didn’t seem amused - if anything he was pissed at the sudden turn of events that he’d managed to uncover himself - but he was intrigued whenever Joshua reached out to wave his hand in front of her face as mockingly as he ever would, but she reached up to snatch his hand out of the air, a look of disbelief falling on her face.

  
“Is that true, Joshua? You’re playing alive?”

  
Her words were clear this time. No shakiness, no hurt, no anger -

  
Just a simple question communicating a simple request:

  
_Tell me the truth._

  
And Joshua did just that. 

  
“Hee hee… cat’s hopped out of the bag, I suppose. It shouldn’t change much between us, I assure you. I was simply waiting for the right moment to tell you.”

  
No, actually, he wasn’t. The week was almost over and he very blatantly had _no_ intentions of being honest with her since the beginning. It should have been the first thing he told her was that she was playing with an illegal Player. 

  
Hell, now that she knew, a lot about Joshua had clicked into place in her head.

  
There was a blank of silence in her head. It passed through with nothing but the sound of white noise, and the second she regained control of reality at the sheer fact Joshua wasn’t even _attempting_ to cover his ass after being caught in a situation that should very well not be taken lightly nor treated like a joke, she felt something where her trust for him should have been snap in half.

  
She picked the frail pretty faced piece of shit up by his expensive shirt and shoved him hard against the nearest wall. Joshua grunted softly at the feeling of the hard cement digging into his skin, scratching it up through the fabric, but he had that same shit eating grin on his face, same arrogant aura about him.

  
“How could you do this to me?! How could you lie?! You know how important this is to me, and I trusted you!”

  
She’d never heard her own voice go so raw. Her shouts echoed throughout the empty space, deeper into the unreachable Shibuya river, and she felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She’d never felt such unexplained betrayal, so much to the point that she found herself -

  
She stepped back, and in a big rush of emotion, had managed to throw Joshua to the ground. She wanted to bury the heel of her foot into his neck, kick him, punch him, scratch him, scream at him as loud as she could to get rid of this distasteful feeling she hated sitting in her gut. She should do to him like what she kept seeing in her memories, how he’d grabbed her by her hair and shoved her to the ground to step on her back and bury the barrel against her head and -

  
“Witch. Witch! Hey, knock it off!”

  
She felt a strong hand pull her back, and though she was prepared to turn around and scream at the person who was interfering with the ass-beating Joshua was practically begging for at this point, she came face to face with Kariya, who had a great amount of seriousness on his face.  
  


Why stop her?

  
“I’m the bad guy. Hear me? I’m the bad guy and I’m tellin’ ya to knock it off. That should mean _somethin’_ to ya, kid. You kept goin’ with that and you woulda gotten Erased for attackin’ your own partner.”

  
And the bad guy was stopping her from doing something that would work out in his favor? Nothing this guy did made sense, at all. It was ridiculous. There was no point to what he just did, and if she had Erased Joshua, what would it have mattered? He was an illegal Player, for God’s sake, and it’s not like he was counting on being legal any time soon.

  
The kid would be too worried about staining his precious pretty skin with something like blood for the sake of playing a Game he could see going on while alive. 

  
She pointedly stepped away from Kariya, glaring at him.

  
Joshua was standing once more the next time he spoke, merely only brushing off the dust and dirt that clung to his expensive Pegaso clothing. 

  
“Viola, you’re always so feisty - ” Joshua began, as nonchalant as he would ever be - as he would _always_ fucking be.  
  


Of course this was a goddamned joke to him.  
  
“Just stop.”

  
She began to push past the both of them, breaking into a run before she could think of anything else. She couldn’t get much done without him - at all - and that was the shitty part of it all. Of course he would do this. The truth always comes out eventually, and he knew she would have reacted badly to it. 

  
But they wouldn’t be able to keep distance if they were going to win the Game.

  
And Viola’s life wasn’t the only on the line this time. Yet to Joshua, none of that mattered, if it wasn’t centered around himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kill me dont read this

Viola didn't know how in the hell Joshua would get the idea in his head that she even could cheat at this... "game" that she'd only been introduced to a day or so prior to now. She's definitely far from being a pro at it, but Joshua was almost pitifully horrible at the game. He didn't use pins like she did, so the second she pushed a few in his hand, the blatant discomfort on his face was enough to make a smile twitch onto her lips.

  
He was _clueless_. But in a sense, so was she, so they were equal when playing at least.

  
Yet, somehow, Viola won. Though she could thank Joshua for being absolute shit at the game for that victory.

  
"This isn't fair, Viola. You've actually played before so clearly you're better than me! Have you been playing secretly?" Joshua snapped her way. She'd finally managed to get under his skin just the way he'd been doing to her all week, and it was a pleasant sight to see Joshua almost throwing a tantrum over something as simple as a game of Tin-Pin.

  
It settled their argument, yes, and now they were going to wait an hour for the mission mail as per Viola's win, but it wasn't going to make Joshua happy.

  
Viola shrugged, shoving her pins back in her pocket.

  
"Why should I answer you on that?"

  
"How about because I'm _asking_ you?! How did you win just now?"

  
The fact she went completely silent after that positively irked Joshua. She was sure if she looked now, steam would be coming out of his ears.

  
It was endearing to think the way she could piss him off is not giving him his way.

  
_What a spoiled brat..._

  
But Joshua, being the smart ass that he is, eventually got irritated with the fact Viola was forcing them to wait for an entire hour before they set off to do anything in Joshua's agenda, and that painfully hindered him with how he urgently spoke on the phone with Mr. Hanekoma, twisting his hair around his finger - probably a force of nervous habit, she would guess - before he clicked his phone shut, tapping his foot against the pavement for a few seconds before he sighed.

  
It was barely 15 minutes in and he was already looking like an annoyed wreck.

  
Everything was playing out in Viola's favor so far.

  
Almost.

  
"Viola, can you do me a teensy favor?"

  
He played right into her hands, just so easily enough that it almost made Viola consider he knew what she was up to. But his finger was tapping against his cellphone nervously. She could tell he felt tempted to flip it open and check on it again despite the fact he'd just done it before walking over to her.

  
"No, I'm not letting up on the wait." Viola said, as cold as she could be, regarding him with a disinterested and stubborn look.

  
Joshua's pout deepened. Viola almost cringed at that. He really did look like some kid who wasn't getting his way - be it a toy or some candy - but instead it was simply over having to wait 45 more minutes before he got to push along his plans.

  
"A trade?"

  
Viola put on her best smirk, which only seemed to irritate Joshua just that much more. Oh well.

  
"Tell me something I want to know and I'll think about it."

  
Only because they were partners, and partners had to go everywhere with each other. It was too risky to part ways from one another for long, so if Viola sat down on a bench for the rest of the day, then Joshua would have to stamp his foot and yell at her for the entire day. If she didn't move, he didn't either.

  
"You've twisted my arm, I supposed. What is it?"

  
He didn't bother to keep how vexed he was out of his tone. Viola straightened her posture and crossed her arms, glaring him down firmly. He challenged her gaze with an equally - if not worse - cruel stare.

  
"What are you after? You can't make me run around with you and expect me to comply with it when I don't even know what we're looking for."

  
Joshua miraculously - if not blatantly scarily - lost all traces of anger and exhaustion as that familiar smirk played on his lips. The smug, cocky bastard seemed to enjoy the direction the conversation was taking.

  
"You're curious? Why didn't you just ask?"

  
"What the - Joshua, I asked at least _three_ fucking times at this point."

  
Joshua raised a finger to her lips, as if to silence her from distracting the passerby's that couldn't hear them in the first place. Viola knocked away his hand and gave him an expectant look.

  
She _wouldn't_ hesitate to sit her ass down and not move for the whole day and although it was extreme, she would do anything it would take to get the goddamn truth out of him.

  
Joshua, however, chose the brighter side of things.

  
"Deep breaths now, Viola. No need to get so riled up."

  
"Tell me _now_ , Joshua. I'm not going to do a single thing with you until you do."

  
Joshua quirked a brow, surprised at her assertiveness. Her voice was always lower, more rough and aggressive, and she'd snapped at him more than once this week, so why is this a surprise to him now?

  
"Oh? Is that a threat?"

  
Well, yes, it was, but the only threat she really felt like posing right now was reaching over and seriously slapping the bullshit out of him. Or slamming his face into a wall a few times. Whatever worked.

  
Viola frowned.

  
"Joshua, the longer you sit here and tease, the more time you lose. Just tell me what you're looking for."

  
Joshua actually considered her. For the entire week so far, if it wasn't apart of what he had in mind, her words passed through one ear and out the other on him, so it was immense progress on both parts as he raised a finger to his chin, brushing against it for a moment before humming to himself.

  
There was nothing promising he would tell the truth, but she might have something to go off of.

  
"Alright, alright. I'll tell you."

  
Joshua's grin grew as he toyed with another piece of his hair (he had so many nervous ticks it seemed almost impossible to believe he was this smug about everything).

  
"I'm going to jack Shibuya."

  
Viola blinked, took a second to soak up the serious tone that lurked in his expression, and then scowled.

  
"...Right. A real answer?"

  
Joshua - oh fucking kill her - giggled, the sound as natural as air itself as he let go of the strands of hair.

  
"That is a real answer, Viola. Have more faith in me."

  
She couldn't. Well, blatantly, because she had no fucking _clue_ what that meant. It didn't make sense - how did the tracker work into all of this? - at all, and his cockiness only proved further he wasn't about to give an in detail explanation.

  
"How... do you jack a town. What does that mean?"

  
Again, with his phone this time. He couldn't sit still for long. Though when he did it this time, she distinctly noticed he only did it long enough to check the time. He really did have his own schedule to run on, and she was practically torturing him by keeping him in place and preventing him from moving it along.

  
And when Joshua glanced back at her, she didn't like the look on his face. She'd seen it before, too, at the Slam-Off at Molco. When he presented her with the pins he stole from Shooter. When he talked so cryptically about things he would never let her in on knowing.  
  
  
 _What could he be scheming in that head of his now -_

  
"Here's the deal: I'll tell you how we jack Shibuya... only if you kiss me."

  
It almost didn't sound real at first, and for a second she expected him to say it again when she gave him an askance, confused look, but when he failed to do so, she knew she hadn't heard him wrong.

  
And when her confusion melted into a wide-eyed, almost deadly glare from Viola, he giggled that _infuriating_ giggle and pushed a stray hair out of his face (she's going to have gray hairs by the end of this week, goddamn it).

  
"Now, now. You twisted my arm. Isn't it fair if I do the same to you?"

  
No, this was utter _bullshit_ is what it was.

  
It wasn't fair. Viola had him pinned down, had him cornered, so fuck this little shit if he thought for even a second he could turn this around in his favor. Hell, she'll go as far as to chain his foot to a bench and stand there with her arms crossed as he begged to be let up if that's what she had to do to get Joshua to tell her the fucking truth for once.   
Joshua's smirk only grew.

  
"What? Can't muster up the courage? I know it must be a privilege to have such an offer, but really, we can't stand here all day."

  
Oh, fuck this kid. She's going to spite the living shit out of him. She's going to show she'll go to the ends of the fucking world just to know this shit.

  
What, is he expecting her to turn into the damsel-in-distress ready to reward her Prince Charming for saving her from something evil? _Fuck_ no. She's not a delicate little flower ready to be plucked from its roots. She's a goddamn fast growing weed - dandelion, she would prefer - ready to snipe the pretty rose from its high horse, more like. Joshua should know at this point Viola isn't delicate or soft. She's aggressive, she's fast-paced - if not well-paced at best - and she didn't have time to be taunted by someone she needed to work with to just live through this week.

  
She grabbed the pretty petite prince by a handful of his silky, carefully taken care of hair and yanked him forward, her other hand curling around the back of his neck.

  
...His skin was soft, she would admit, and his hair really did look as nice to the touch as it appeared.

  
Really, any sensation to distract her from the fact that she had to kiss this motherfucker just to tell the goddamned truth.

  
His lips didn't really follow in the trend with how well he took care of himself. They were chapped, slightly dry, but Joshua took great pleasure in the fact that he'd gotten what he wanted out of her in a time that they didn't need to be joking around.

  
In all honesty, she probably could have just kept being stubborn and he would have given way eventually. Especially if she decided to sit down in the middle of the scramble and let him kick and scream over the fact she wasn't going to do anything with him.

  
Seriously, the entirety of the Game wasn't the time to joke around, whether or not they had any missions coming on their way and this kid treated it like it was a goddamn show to host.

  
Despite all of that, for some reason, her heart was pounding hard the second she took it in fully that people were walking right through the both of them as they stood there, kissing in a kiss Viola didn't even want to do. It was humiliating, yet somehow satisfying. Arrogant, snotty, condescending, stupid, idiotic, handsome, pretty boy _bastard_ \- !

  
Fucking _kill_ her.

  
"...Well," Joshua said the moment Viola yanked herself away, shoving him back hard enough that he stumbled. He recovered from the sudden movement, just before that same smirk came back on his face. It seemed impossible to get rid of.

  
"Not what I was expecting. You're so rough, Viola."

  
No, that was a considerable amount of will power she just displayed to not kick him in the backside instead of giving into what he wanted. And that's the one thing about Joshua she found herself despising the most. Even if she held strong at first, he had such manipulative ways to make her do what he wanted her to do. She can't think of one time this week so far she's found herself complying with what she wanted to do that would be better for the both of them, only because she's been giving into his personal agenda and priorities.

  
Just who _is_ Joshua?

  
"Hm. I should show you how to be sweeter. I think if we went like this..."

  
Despite the fact she shoved him, had only kissed him to spite him, he smoothly slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her close once more.

  
"And if you relaxed your shoulders, un-clenched your jaw, and fell forward a bit, I think it could be quiet romantic."

  
She hadn't meant to follow his instructions, but somehow fell suit with what he commanded her to do.

  
He then leaned forward, eyes closing, lips puckered, as if planning to swoop her off of her feet right then and there...

  
Their lips only touched again for a moment - remarkably softer than when she had done it herself - before Viola grabbed his arm that was locked around her waist in her tight grasp, pushing him away for a second time with a grand shove.

  
Joshua stood aside, confused, as she crossed her arms and adverted her eyes. She never typically made eye contact with anyone when talking in the first place, but she was all too afraid she'd look at him right now and see a shit-eating grin paired with a cocky look in his eyes.

  
He'd gotten his revenge for the day, for making him impatient. So in a sense, Viola guessed this was fair.  
  
  
She was only going to go scrub her lips down until new skin peeled through though, just so she didn't have to have that feeling stuck on her face all day. It was... almost disgusting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> viola is fucking gay now and has a girlfriend named calliope what the fuck


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dont read this part 2

It's uncomfortably quiet as the two of them wait for Hanekoma to finish modifying their cellphones. There's a squeaky ceiling fan above them on the highest speed it can be, the smell of coffee wafting around them, and they're just some of the very few things Viola has her attention focused in on right now so she could avoid any thought of looking or interacting with Joshua at the moment.

  
Joshua had nothing to flip open and close for no particular reason to satiate his nervous habit, so he tapped his perfectly trimmed and filed nails against the thick granite counter of the cafe instead. If he was counting off how many times he did it, Viola didn't know, but it was getting repetitive. There was a pattern to it too, Viola noticed as he kept doing it. He would tap his four main fingers against the counter three times, pause, tap three more times, and then add his thumb the best he could by the end of it.

  
Viola felt her eyebrow twitch at the unsettling and definitely not very rhythmic rhythm, but she dared not speak nor move to resolve it, only because she felt so... _watched_ by him. It was like his eyes would follow her like a predator on prey, and if she dared breathed too loudly, his eyes would snap over to her, waiting to strike for something at any God given moment..

  
And god, that's all he did. That's all he's done to her so far besides teasing and mocking her for just about anything she said and guessed. He looked at her way too closely, examined every feature she had to offer, even going as far as to tick a mental checklist in his head of qualities he liked about her face and things he didn't like. Hell, Viola would admit she had one herself - what, with his silky hair and lavender eyes - but had only started one herself because Joshua couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from her.

  
"Well, this is taking a little longer than I thought." Joshua finally said, breaking the silence over the white noise and distant sound of funky, weird music coming out of a speaker jammed in the corner of the cafe. She was so used to the squeaking of the ceiling fan she didn't even hear it anymore.

  
Viola didn't respond. Joshua stole a glance at her - of course he did, when does he not? - and then flicked his eyes away again.

  
...It was almost like he was looking for something.

  
"You're rather cold today, Viola. Are we feeling well?"

  
And to talk to her as if she is a child was degrading, and something told her he only kept doing it to irritate her.

  
"Shut _up_ , Joshua." Viola snapped. Besides, she was still mad at him for what he pulled on her earlier.

  
Joshua snickered (of course he would).

  
"What? Oh come on, Viola, it was just a trick. No need to get so caught up in it. You need to be more mature if we're going to make it through this week."

  
Says the same fucking person who literally got so upset over the fact I wasn't going to give into his whining that he tricked me.

  
"Hypocrite." She spat, crossing her arms and kicking back in the seat she was sitting in.

  
Viola didn't plan on talking to him for the rest of the day. What he pulled wasn't funny, wasn't a fucking joke, and it only went to show just how entitled Joshua was to himself. The fact he could simply laugh in the face of something that could kill both of them without hesitation was bullshit on max, and furthermore only proved to make Viola even more suspicious of him. What idiot ignored something as serious as mission mail not coming?

  
Joshua wasn't your typical person, that was for sure. Something was definitely up with him, and while she knew she had to trust her partner, it felt impossible when Joshua presented himself as an obstacle to get through the week.

  
"Viola? ...Violaaa? Are you even listening to me?"

  
Of course he had been talking to her and she wasn't even bothering to listen.

  
She didn't regard him with even a glare as she felt him scoot his chair that much closer to her (they were already elbow to elbow) and lean in.

  
She finally turned her scowl toward him, trying to make it as cold as she could for a warning he needed to scoot back where he was and add three more inches to it, but it was hard when he slid his hand over hers for a moment, brushing his thin, piano-skilled fingers up her arm until he reached her shoulder, resting his hand there.

  
"You're not really mad at me, are you?" Joshua asked, leaning in. His face was only mere inches from her own, his warm breath brushing across her face as he spoke.

  
Viola wanted to punch the kid, wanted to smack that pretty face away from her own, but damn, was he attractive. Just the right amount of handsome and the right amount of appeal, all together in an unimpressive lanky body.

  
"...If you're mad at me, I'll feel really bad, you know? You wouldn't make me feel like that, would you?" Joshua asked, eyes staring right into hers.

  
She swallowed harshly.

  
"I can always make it up to you," Joshua added on, despite the silence and obvious discomfort on her face. "If you're that mad."

  
She didn't know it was possible for him to close anymore distance between them, and she swore his face was just about to brush against her own with a sweet promise of doing something to make up for his lies when Hanekoma kicked open the door that lead to the back of the cafe again, both of their phones in his hands.

  
"Heya guys, sorry for the w..."

  
Viola scrambled to push Joshua away, kicking his chair a good distance away from her own the second Hanekoma came back in. Joshua was startled by the sudden movement, but nevertheless still smiled with that devious smirk of his.

  
Without even looking at Hanekoma, he held his hand out for his phone, to which Hanekoma gave him.

  
His nervous habit had to have immediately been remembered, because the first thing he did was flip it open, tap on it for a few seconds, and then close it.

  
...And the rest of the week was probably going to be no different. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kill me

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO if you didn't read the tags
> 
> viola is my first oc ever and i wrote her in a 50,000 word long fic that basically took her through the game neku did oh and i shipped her with joshua
> 
> now she has her Own Story and has developed a lot since i made her so yeah lmao i never finished the fic but since i found it, i thought, "might as well"
> 
> k cool bye


End file.
